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Sunday, 24 April 2016

24th April 1936 - Mary to Terrick

Dunally LodgeSheppertonApril 24thd 1936Dearest TickyWith much thought on the matter in the last 24 hours (for obvious reasons) - I have discovered three main causes from which our future disagreements will probably spring.(If you're not feeling in the mood for this kind of idle prattle I should leave this until later)- Now and again when driving myself in the car, I like to ponder on our middle age. Our youth is destined to be so magnificent (as it has been for 3½ years) that it only needs "relishing" and not "pondering". But I often consider (quite seriously) what a terrific responsibility "marriage" is. I don't mean the usual kind of responsibility - money and children - but the responsibility each of you suddenly takes upon yourselves for the welfare and happiness of another single individual (absolutely and entirely different from the comparatively small responsibility one has as a member of a family).So it really seems to me a great help to try and imagine what unexpected pit-falls you may have to come up against, and what you would do if you did - and it's much more fun to tell you too - and for you to tell me, because that way we might avoid them altogether - or we might even find them funny if we met them:The pit-fall that I (probably in common with the rest of the world) always put first, is "money" because there are so many ways of treating it and when it's gone it's so gone - (I have a feeling it would be easier to put steps down the side of this "pit" - we shall be in it so often).- The second is my tongue which has never in this life ever thought twice before it said exactly what it wanted to - I'm frightfully sorry about it - and I put some of the blame on having been brought up in a family where everyone is as bad. But that doesn't mean to say I can't improve - and a few months back I tried very hard for about a week - and now I'm just as bad as I was. This is one of my stupider sides, darlingest, and it's a good job you know too much about it already. Perhaps if you told me about it when I was doing it, it might make a difference.- The third point is, and this is quite a new one (and rather original, I thought!) your digestion. Now I know mine isn't too good, and I may suffer quite as much as you - but a middle-aged woman with indigestion is twenty times more companionable than a middle-aged man. (Don't as me on what I found my statement - but it's what I imagine). I had quite vivid pictures of you the other night - not as being fat - but thin and irritable and bad-tempered - and you kept on worrying about what you were having to eat. It was the kind of picture that made me feel that one day it might quite easily come true (I'm sorry I'm being so rude) - and then I remembered how you had indigestion even now in these days - so I'm filled with foreboding!!! Do you think we can do anything about it? Or don't you think there's much need to worry? - It might quite easily be the other way round, of course!- I haven't got very much longer before the post goes - and I'm horrified to think how bored you'll be by this time - I can't understand what it is urges me to write to you when I've nothing to say!I'm glad you got my message about the "Morning Post" - we didn't see it ourselves until we got home. it was jolly decent of them, wasn't it? I wonder if it'll be in any more. I haven't heard from the Yorkshire Post people yet. The one of us both is the one I'm longing to see. Can't we ask them about it again?

Tomorrow Mummy & I are leaving here at 2.15. So can you meet us at Richmond Station per usual at 2.45? It will save you taking your case to the office in the morning won't it? So if you don't phone we'll pick you up then. I think the weekend should be quite fun - don't you? It'll be marvellous having you to myself again for a bit. I miss you so terribly every day now.

- Goodnight, very dearest dear - you'll never understand what you mean to me.